Back when I lived in Alabama, I had the privilege of getting my weather reports from one of the best meteorologists in the country, James Spann.
There were multiple tornado outbreaks while I lived there, but the one that was etched in everyone’s memory was the 2011 twister that hit Tuscaloosa head on. It completely reshaped that town, and it made everyone skittish about severe weather.
Spann would always hold a Facebook live session ahead of potential outbreaks, and inevitably, he would be asked the question, “Will this be like the tornado outbreak of 2011?”
His response was always the same. “If one tornado comes down your street and destroys only your home, it will be your 2011,” he’d say.
I can’t help but think about that perspective when looking at the coronavirus lockdown.
We’re literally in a tale of two pandemics.
For those who have contracted the virus, and for families who have had loved ones die from it, it has been everything the experts said it would be, and worse.
For those who have not gotten the virus – or have been asymptomatic – and have not come into contact with anyone who has been directly affected by COVID-19, it reads like an overhyped media ploy that has spelled economic disaster for the entire country.
It’s impossible to look the families who have been affected by COVID-19 in the eyes and say, “This was all blown out of proportion. They didn’t have to shut the whole country down.”
It’s also hard to look at a small business owner or out-of-work laborer who have been largely unaffected by the virus and say, “We need to keep the economy shuttered a bit longer to completely flatten the curve.”
There’s a national outcry as states like Mississippi continue to reopen slowly. Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week that skipping steps in the federal guidelines to reopen would cause needless suffering and death.
There’s also a national outcry to reopen the economy and fast, because the fallout from a prolonged shutdown will no doubt cause its own share of suffering. And even death in some cases.
For the past decade-plus, we’ve witnessed an America devolved into factions pitted against one another.
It seems that this is happening in the case of the coronavirus.
“You have to be one or the other,” our culture says. “You’re either for millions of people dying or you’re not.”
No matter what our culture dictates, this is not reality.
Life is rarely that black and white.
We can believe there’s a ridiculously dangerous virus on our hands and at the same time we can subscribe to the belief that the economic and societal fallout from this quarantine is dangerous as well.
This is not about profits or whether people can take their beach vacations this year.
This is about small business owners and workers who face losing their businesses, livelihoods, homes, and in some cases their lives.
The government simply will not be able to prop this economy up indefinitely.
Something will have to give in the coming weeks.
On Tuesday, Gov. Tate Reeves issued stricter guidelines for seven counties that appear to be hotspots for the virus as part of his “identify and isolate” strategy. Those were Attala, Leake, Scott, Jasper, Neshoba, Newton and Lauderdale Counties.
As for Sunflower, our numbers have not gone up that much in the past week or so. We’re currently at 64 confirmed cases, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health, and we have yet to have an outbreak at a long-term care facility.
That’s not to say this will not happen or the numbers won’t suddenly spike, but it seems fair to give the state’s “identify and isolate” strategy a shot.
These are data-driven decisions that allow communities that seemed to have flattened the curve to return to some sense of normalcy under social distancing guidelines.
No one is advocating that we tear off the masks and recreate Woodstock.
We need to give our struggling businesses a fighting chance at survival, while doing it safely.
